


Some Sort Of Cosmic Joke

by morganya



Series: Joke-verse [1]
Category: Bandom
Genre: Addiction, Drug Use, Gen, Self-Destruction, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-03
Updated: 2009-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:02:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the band, Gabe unravels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Sort Of Cosmic Joke

**Author's Note:**

> Written for bandom_hc. Thanks to which_is_golden for untangling my verbiage. Quotes stolen from Buffalo Tom and City and Colour.

_  
I'm down on the ground   
_

Gabe passes out backstage and when he wakes up he doesn't have a band anymore. It didn't happen exactly like that, but that's the way he'd prefer to remember it.

He isn't even fucked up at the time. He walks off stage thinking he's probably dehydrated and should grab some water before they hit the after-party. His throat hurts and his head hurts and the floor feels wrong below him, and the next thing he knows is the room's wobbling and he's pitching forward, smacking into the carpet.

He wakes up in the hospital. The first thing he thinks is that he's grateful that someone thought to turn the television on, commercials for cars and restaurants flickering by on the screen in front of the bed. Alex sits by the bed, not looking at the TV.

Gabe tries to say something kind of reassuring like, "What the fuck are you doing, staring at me while I'm sleeping, you creep?" Except when he tries to talk it feels like a bomb goes off in his throat, and he winds up just kind of hissing and groaning.

"Hey," Alex says. "You picked my shift to wake up. Victoria's going to be jealous. Don't talk, okay?"

Gabe squiggles his hand at him. "Right, yeah, yeah," Alex says, and leans across him, snagging a pen and paper from the bedside and handing it over. "Go nuts."

 _This fucking sucks,_ Gabe writes.

"You're telling me. Fucked our whole night up." Alex squeezes his shoulder. "Way to be an asshole. How're you feeling now?"

Gabe makes a horrible face and turns his thumb downward.

"The nurse'll be here in like a minute. She'll juice you up with something."

 _Tell her to hurry her ass up_ , Gabe writes. _When can I get out?_

Alex frowns. "I don't know."

Gabe crumples up the used paper and looks for a wastebasket. Alex snatches the ball away from him before he can toss it. Gabe rolls his eyes and writes, _Do we have to miss the show?_

"I don't know, man. Worry about that later."

They're smack dab in the middle of the tour. They have a bunch of sold out shows coming up. His fucking body is fucking stupid. _We're not canceling the show._

"Gabe, you're really pretty sick. They told us –"

 _Vitamin C._ Gabe makes gimme motions with one hand.

"You have a fuckin' _abscess_ in your throat, Gabe, not to mention that the doctor told us that you were working on a case of pneumonia. It's going to take a while."

Gabe puts the pen down. Alex looks miserably at him.

"This is getting to be a pattern," Alex says.

Gabe picks up the pen again, even though he's starting to get tired. _You know how we roll._

"Yeah," Alex says. "Yeah."

He should have known something was wrong then, but he's freaking out about probably having to cancel some shows and exhaustion is catching up with him, so he misses it. Alex pats his arm and says, "Get some sleep," and he doesn't have it in him to protest.

They let him have until the morning. Somehow Alex gets elected to give him the news. He doesn't know if they drew straws or what. He finds out like this: he tries to tell Alex through a mix of gesturing and writing that they can just reschedule a few dates and load him up on antibiotics and new shiny painkillers for the rest. And Alex looks at him and shakes his head, and Gabe _knows_.

 _Fuck you_ , he writes, and he probably would have thrown a couple things if he hadn't been pumped full of Demerol. _Son of a bitch,_ he adds.

"We're not happy about it either," Alex says. "We just…I think it's time to let this go, Gabanti."

 _Number 1 album_ , Gabe writes. He underlines it and stabs the pen into the paper.

"Yeah, that counts for shit when our lead singer keeps giving us heart attacks," Alex says. "It's just not fun anymore, dude."

 _I thought you were going to the wall with me._

"We hit the fucking wall," Alex said. "You're just trying to ram through it at this point."

 _You don't think I'd like to get a choice to when my band breaks up?_ Gabe writes. _This is my fucking show, and you don't have_. He stops writing in the middle of the sentence, crumples up the paper and tosses it away, and writes _Fuck you_ instead.

"Gabe," Alex says. Gabe rolls over, turning his back. "Gabe. You can tell everyone that it was all your idea."

He knows that's the only concession they'll make, the only way they can appeal to his pride while they're leaving him. And he doesn't want to, but he laughs, even though it hurts like hell, and it leaves him coughing and rubbing his throat. Alex puts a hand on his back, smoothing down his shoulders, and says, "It's been one hell of a party."

He convinces them that they shouldn't call it quits until after the tour by reminding them of the legal shitstorm that would ensue and appealing to everyone's professionalism. He has to go through surgery again; it's not as bad as the last time, just local anesthesia followed by a bunch of antibiotics, and he feels okay afterwards. The doctors all make frowny faces at him afterwards and repeat the same blah blah blah that he's heard before. He still manages to convince them that he'll be fine and he should be released as soon as humanly possible.

Once he stops feeling groggy, he writes out the press release and faxes it over to Crush, along with the apology about having to cancel some shows. He tries to keep the announcement short and sweet, for him, anyway, saying that a series of parties was way more awesome than one big party when the booze eventually ran out and the guests puked in the nachos, and so out of love he was kicking everyone out of the house so they could find another place to get wild. He ends it with "XO, Gabe."

He comes out of the hospital with some brand new drugs that he's hoping to save for a rainy day and some warnings that he doesn't really listen to. He tells Sarti not to put the announcement out until the tour is done, because he is not fucking ending this band under a cloud of pity and pissed off ticket holders. If he's going out, he's going out with a bang.

The day of the last show, Victoria starts crying about half an hour after she wakes up and then doesn't stop, going through the day in a kind of constant slow leak. She squeezes into Gabe's bunk and hugs him with her face soft and blurry against his neck, and he doesn't have the heart to say knock it off. Ryland mutters wisecracks under his breath and tries to act like he's just playing World of Warcraft like normal, but he keeps blanking out and staring numbly into hyperspace while getting hacked to death on the computer. Alex just looks guilty. Nate drinks, which is pretty normal, but at the end of the night he grabs Gabe in a hug and pounds his back so hard Gabe thinks his kidneys are going to dislodge, and pulls away with wounded eyes.

The announcement comes out when Gabe's on the plane back home. Sarti texts him, _be prepared for lots of emails._

*****

 _  
maybe next time will be your time   
_

Everything's mostly okay when he first gets back. It's kind of weird with Bianca gone; they decided to call the whole thing off before this last tour, and she's moved all her stuff out of the apartment. He still wouldn't mind if she dropped in for a while, if only to rub his shoulders and make him her mom's minestrone, even though he started a juice fast right when he came home to clean the toxins out of him and he wouldn't be able to eat it.

He's still getting over being sick and doesn't really feel like himself, and he doesn't have the energy to do much more than get under the covers and stare at the walls. The first few days, actually being in a bed instead of a bunk feels like the best present ever, but then it starts to lose its charm.

He drags his laptop into bed with him once he can actually sit up for more than five minutes without getting drained. He goes online and finds about a million kids sending him emails or Twitter messages, asking what's going on, why is he doing this, is anything wrong? He should have seen this coming.

He props the laptop up on his copy of _The Teachings of Don Juan_ to make it easier to type and spends some time putting a blog post together. Halfway through, he realizes that he maybe should have waited until he felt better to do this; his metaphors keep getting away from him and he makes a few more spelling mistakes than usual. He thinks that he's trying to say that the band ended because he wanted it to, because maybe if he says that enough, he'll believe it and stop being pissed off. He doesn't know how well that's coming across.

When he actually posts the thing, he gets pretty much what he expected. There are a lot of emails from kids trying to keep their chins up, which make him feel even worse, and then there are the ones telling him that he'll be lucky if his untalented, ungrateful ass ever finds another band, and, oh yeah, he's a piece of shit and should go fuck himself.

He takes a certain amount of pride in those.

He hasn't thought about what he's going to do next. He's always believed that the universe has a plan for him. He's just never known what the final stage of the plan is.

In a way, the band picked the best possible time to break up. The label contract was for three albums, and that's what they'd given them. There are no messy negotiations over who owes who what, just a handshake and a goodbye. It's not like it was six years ago when it took Gabe months to stop thinking he was going to walk out his front door and find Tyler with a rifle trained on his chest. Now everything just feels like an ending.

It's not that bad of a legacy. Three bands, seven albums, a hit single, thousands of days on the road. It's something that's at least bigger than him, which should be enough.

He changes his email address.

Pete calls him a couple times, wanting to know what's going on and if he can help, which Gabe thinks is due to lingering guilt over what happened with Panic. He tells Pete that the breakup happened because the world finally couldn't handle that much awesome being contained in one place, and Pete laughs and sounds relieved and then Gabe goes back to bed.

Finally, he stops feeling like an invalid and decides he should take advantage of that. He has a drink and picks up the guitar, telling himself that he's not actually going to sit down and _write a song_ or whatever, he's just going to fuck around while he watches Animal Planet and see what happens.

It takes barely half an hour before his throat feels raw and he sounds like some kind of fucking dog-parrot hybrid, and he almost throws the guitar against the wall. He'd known this would happen ever since the cyst; he'd thought he expected it. He'd thought it was kind of an awesome way to go out ( _Gabe Saporta, he lived music so hard that it burned him to the ground_ ), that he was all set for it.

And now he's sitting on his couch looking at a documentary about moose, and he's thinking, _God, who the fuck am I now?_

*****

 _  
broken face and broken hands   
_

Ryland and Alex go back to This Is Ivy League. Victoria goes back to film school in Los Angeles, and messages drift down to him once in a while. She's studying, she's editing this video, she's modeling, she's editing again. Nate hooks up with this band from Mississippi and immediately heads back out on tour, not even pausing for a second. The kids are doing well for themselves.

Nate sends him texts from the road, mostly YouTube links of cats falling over and pictures of gross medical shit; he saves the really outrageous stuff and forgets to reply, to the point that Nate starts adding, _hit me back, bro_ at the end of the messages. Victoria sends emails and leaves voicemail messages, always short and increasingly anxious as time goes on. Her boyfriend calls him once, sounding so pissed off that Gabe feels grateful that it's not possible to punch anyone over the phone, and then never again.

Ryland and Alex are more persistent. He takes to setting aside some time in the afternoon to have a couple of drinks and go through his messages, weeding out all the invitations to dinner and upcoming shows and deleting them. Every time Ryland says, "You're missing out on prime mocking material, Gabe," or Alex says, "Hey, we're beginning to feel rejected over here," Gabe gives a little _uh-huh_ nod and takes a sip before he erases the message.

They can dress it up how they want, tell him _It was for your own good_ and pretend they still want to hang out, but he's got no interest in faking a smile for any of them. After all the bullshit, they're just a few more people who walked out on him. He's not going to waste his time chasing after people who can't stand to be around him.

He decides he needs to get back into the whole mode of doing whatever the fuck he wants. He wanders off to some club as soon as it gets dark; it's some new place and what the hell. He maybe has a few too many, but whatever, it's the first night out since he's gotten home and besides, the sound system at this place is shitty.

He gets out at three in the morning and finds a takeout Chinese place on the way back home, even though he regrets it as soon as he's in the door. It's already crammed full of people and he doesn't want to wait around.

There are a couple of frat boys behind him who keep giving him looks, and it's getting on his nerves. He makes it until he's paying for the sesame noodles and one of them says, "Hey, Cobra Spaceship, how about you sing Snakes on a Plane?"

He could probably say something like, "Yeah, good one, bro," or "That shit's copyright, got a hundred bucks?" or just nothing at all, but what he actually says is, "How about you suck my cock?"

There's a flurry of activity after that, a lot of yelling and raised fists, and the guy behind the counter threatens to call the cops if they don't get out of there. He's still ready to go once they hit the pavement and it looks like the other guy is too, but the guy's buddy is hanging off his arm, saying, "Drew, c'mon, it's not worth it, come on." So all that happens is the guy calls him an asshole and he calls the guy a motherfucker and then he goes home.

As soon as his keys are in the door, he realizes that he doesn't even want the takeout anymore, so he shoves it into the refrigerator and then slams a couple of drawers open and shut before he pours himself another drink and goes to watch TV.

It's kind of a typical night out, all things considered.

*****

 _  
every time I turn around, somebody falls in love with me   
_

The Sidekick's a tempting little son of a bitch. It's been another long night and his eyes feel achy, but he's not about to cave in and go lie down yet. He sloshes a vodka Red Bull together and sprawls out on the couch while the _True Blood_ opening credits roll. He's already seen this episode, he thinks, but he's not picky about his vampires.

He's feeling more relaxed by the time Sookie, bruised and battered, starts watching some Shirley Temple movie. This is usually the part of the show where he starts poking Bianca and demanding that she look at the screen, even though she had a tendency to fall asleep during his TV binges and more often than not she wound up just groggily nodding at him while he talked.

He wonders if she's watched this episode by herself. He takes a sip and considers. They haven't talked for a while, but it's not like they ever said anything about never speaking again, and it's not like he's going to be a pussy and say that he misses her and he loves her or anything like that.

"You're alive," Sookie tells Bill on the TV.

Gabe reaches for the Sidekick and texts Bianca, _hey this episode of true blood is awesome. lots of ass-kicking. did you ever watch this one?_

He finishes his drink and pours another. Sookie says, "Our love is too short for all that."

Gabe picks up the Sidekick again. _you must have watched this episode. it's memorable as fuck_.

Bill and Sookie are still kissing. Gabe grabs the remote. He doesn't feel like flipping through channels but if he pauses for more than a second he starts to get antsy. _you didn't take any of my dvds when you got yr stuff did you? i'd kind of like to watch mad men now. never mind, tivo will save me._

He's starting to run low on vodka. He makes a face at the bottle. _i wish i could live in a tv show. but i won't let anyone be my screenwriter. i don't roll like that._

He still hasn't gotten a response. He takes another drink and writes, _munch are you passed out already? you're missing quality gabe time!_

There's still no answer. He rolls his eyes, but before he can send her anything else, he conks out on the couch. He gets woken up by the Sidekick buzzing; there's a text from her that says, _maybe one day you'll stop being gabe from cobra and say something real to me. until then fuck you._

He rubs his eyes. He looks at the message for a long time before he erases it.

*****

 _  
this has never been my sole intention   
_

He prides himself on knowing just what exactly is fucking him up. He's never been that afraid of losing himself, but he likes to know what to expect if he's going to try. So the times when he wakes up for no reason with his heart pounding and something nameless and amorphous swirling through his head, he knows exactly what's going on, but it still pisses him off.

It's just his brain overloading on chemicals, but he really can't sit back and let himself just experience it because he doesn't know where it's coming from, or if it's going to stop. It's easier to just get up, careen into the bathroom and throw back a couple of emergency Klonopin. It may just be the placebo effect, but it usually doesn't take too long before he feels ready to face the world again.

Sometimes he thinks he's starting out on a brand new stage of life, the stage of post-music, and sometimes he really doesn't think his life's changed all that much. The tedium of days on the bus gets replaced by days hanging out in his apartment, fucking around on the computer or paying bills, and then he goes out and it sort of feels like he's putting his game face back on, for a while. Sometimes it just feels like he's turning into some sort of feral thing. He bans himself from Twitter after he gets drunk one night and calls a girl some awful names after she asks which reunion will come first, Cobra or Midtown. He feels like shit when he sobers up and emails her to apologize, but doesn't get a response.

Mostly he deals with things. He knows the right things to say when his brother calls up asking how he's doing, or when his father calls, "Gabriel, where are you?" on his voicemail. He knows how to put everyone at ease.

He manages to dodge his father's invitations to come out to Springfield politely. He avoids saying that he can't come over because he doesn't want to explain how he's once again an unemployed bum, or have anyone ask about how much weight he's lost and send him home with a metric fuckton of his stepmother's _pascualina_. He doesn't want to hear any questions about Bianca and have to say, "I fucked around a little too obviously and I think it was kind of the last straw for her." His life is easier when he doesn't think about it too much. There are only a few things he wants: some decent television shows, good vodka, a couple of pills here and there.

He keeps a stockpile of drugs around the house, just so he knows he has them. It's not like he needs them or anything; he's always been more of a drunk than anything else. It just gives him a feeling of security to look into the medicine cabinet and see the neat little vials lined up on the shelves, or to slip some Percocet into his jacket before he leaves the house, to feel them shifting and clicking inside the plastic. Most of the time he doesn't even need them.

*****

 _  
but I'm closing in on it   
_

He goes to a club in the Bowery, some new place sucking on the ashes of CBGB, which he sort of wants to stay far away from but sort of wants to go to for the train wreck factor. The train wreck factor wins out.

The bouncer gives him the eye at the door, but he still gets in. The interior is weirdly lit; there are spots of fake fluorescent light scattered around the dance floor. The DJ's playing some boring song that Gabe sort of recognizes. It's probably being played ironically.

He has a feeling that going out tonight was a big mistake.

He muscles his way up to the bar, managing to catch a place near the corner. The girl standing next to him gives him a glance, but before he can figure out if he should ignore it or start a glance back contest, she's moving off, which is fine by him. He tells the bartender to keep the drinks coming.

Either they have a rotating DJ schedule or he's drunk enough to stop caring because eventually something comes on that he thinks might be all right to shake his ass to, and he pushes himself away from the bar and starts moving unsteadily towards the floor. The place seems to have filled up since he arrived; he's brushing past bodies and smelling body spray and sweat.

He sees someone tall and tattooed a couple feet in front of him, and he pauses to squint, because his eyesight gets kind of fucked up in clubs, and then he hears Travis yelling over the DJ, "Gabe, you motherfucker," and he grins.

He shoves his way through the crowd, meeting Travis in the middle. It's been a while since he saw Travis clean-shaven, and it shocks him how young he looks without the beard.

"You babyfaced son of a bitch," Gabe shouts, grabbing onto Travis' neck. "What are you doing here?"

"Just got back. I missed New York. What are _you_ doing? Is Bianca here?"

Gabe shakes his head. He's totally casual about it, but Travis' eyes widen anyway.

"Oh, dude," Travis says. "I'm fuckin' out of the loop, I'm sorry."

"It's cool," Gabe says. He tries to shrug and wobbles a little.

Travis puts a hand in between his shoulder blades and gives him an awkward massage with his knuckles. "I'll buy you a drink. This place is fuckin' lame, right?"

"It's all bullshit," Gabe says. Travis laughs and starts trying to get through the crowd. Gabe turns around and attempts to follow.

Someone bumps into his shoulder and he turns to say sorry or something, and there's this asshole staring back at him and _sneering_. Normally he wouldn't make a big deal out of it, but the DJ's playing some shitty rock song now and he really, really hates people getting in his face for no reason, so he says, "What the hell, dude?"

He doesn't get an answer, just a stare, this fat little fuck who's about half his size, and he says, "Oh, fuck you, anyway," and throws a punch.

The guy doesn't try to raise his hands, doesn't seem to realize what's happened even as he's falling backwards, and Gabe knows suddenly that the guy hadn't been trying to get in his face at all, he was just drunk and staring. There's a voice in his head that pipes up loud and clear above the music, saying _You fucked up, Gabriel_.

There's a bouncer at his shoulder, saying, "You, you're leaving. Right now," and Gabe doesn't protest. The guy on the floor, the one he just took out, is gazing peacefully at the ceiling. As the bouncer drags him towards the door, Gabe sees Travis staring back at him over the crowd's heads, eyes baffled, and Gabe tries to give him a look that says _I'm sorry I'm a schmuck_ but he doesn't know if Travis sees it because he's too busy being tossed out on his ass, stumbling on the sidewalk.

"Your fuckin' club is shitty anyway. Get a better gig," Gabe says when he straightens up, but his voice sounds shaky and he doesn't wait around for a response.

*****

 _  
save your strength   
_

He wakes up with a hangover pounding away behind his eye sockets and a sick guilty feeling at the pit of his stomach. He doesn't really remember why he feels guilty at first. He really feels like shit when he remembers ten minutes later.

His normal routine the night after is to go around and apologize to whoever he was an asshole to, but he didn't get anyone's names and can't offer any penance this time. He drags into the kitchen and eats a handful of dry cereal instead. He should probably make a grocery run sometime soon; besides the mostly empty box of Kashi Nuggets, he's down to some canned peaches and a carton of sketchy-looking soy milk.

The door buzzer goes off and Gabe groans. He still hits Talk and says, "Yeah?" His voice is thick and raspy and his throat hurts when he tries to clear it.

His doorman, George, says, "Someone here to see you, Mr. S." And then he hears Travis' voice saying, "It's Travie, Gabe."

So he might get to offer some sort of apology after all. Gabe says, "Yeah, it's cool, send him up."

When he opens the door, Travis is chewing at the skin around his pinky finger. Gabe says, "Look, I know last night was fucked up. I'm sorry. I should know better than to go to the Bowery, you know?"

"I found out about the band," Travis says. "Last night or something. I don't know, we've been in Japan, I was fuckin' out of the loop for a while."

"Yeah," Gabe says. "It was just time to end, you know? Suarez and Ryland are doing okay, Victoria –"

"I talked to Victoria," Travis says. "She's directing something out in L.A., she says it's crazy."

"Back to her roots," Gabe says. "Nate hooked up with this fuckin' group –"

"She's worried about you," Travis says.

"Oh, fuck," Gabe says. He's totally cool with apologizing, he brought that on himself, but he's not going to listen to another speech he's heard a zillion times before. "Yeah, she's a fuckin' worrywart. I lived with her, dude, I know that."

"Dude, I haven't seen you for months and _I'm_ worried. Last night –"

"Last night I was fucked up," Gabe says. "Nothing new. You want to drag your ass over every time I get wrecked, you're gonna rack up a lot of cab fare."

"I dunno, it's probably cheaper than putting up your bail money," Travis says flatly.

"Like I'm dumb enough to fuckin' call you for bail money."

"You're just fuckin' — You don't look good, Gabe. You look sick."

"I'm just having a good time," Gabe says. "I have a hangover. You've seen me with a hangover, I always look like shit."

"Let me come in," Travis says. "Two seconds. I'll fuckin' make some of that weird rainforest tea shit you like."

"I don't need tea," Gabe says. "I don't need anyone to worry about me. You want to go out again some other time, you can give me a call. Sorry again about last night."

"Gabe –"

"Goodbye, Travie," Gabe says, as kindly as he can, and shuts the door.

He thinks about going back to bed, but he knows that if he does that he won't get up for the rest of the day, so he slaps at his laptop irritatedly until his eyes start to glaze over. He still doesn't feel great, but if he doesn't leave the house now he feels like he never will.

Travis is sitting against the opposite wall, sneakers pointed at Gabe's door. Gabe says, "Dude."

"Your hallways are harder than shit," Travis says. "I think I'm getting ass paralysis."

"I'll see what I can do," Gabe says. "Do you have nothing better to do with your day than stalk me?"

"We don't start recording for a month. I got about forty better things to do, but I picked this one."

"Goddamnit, Travie," Gabe says. "Don't make me get building security. Go home."

"That's not going to happen."

"We run into each other for ten minutes, and this is what I get? Dude, we hardly talked last night."

"Doesn't matter," Travis says.

"Why, because you know better than I do what's –"

"No, because I've fucking seen that look before, Gabe. I've _had_ that look. It's never good."

"Fuck you," Gabe says, and goes back inside.

He stomps around the apartment for a while longer before he thinks _This is my fucking place and I don't have to stay here if I don't want to_ , and goes outside again. Travis is still there, mumbling into his cell phone. He looks up.

"If you want to stay there, go ahead," Gabe says. "I don't care."

Travis shrugs. "No, shut up," he says quietly into the phone.

"Who's that?" Gabe says, because Travis' whole posture is different, curled up as close to small as Travis can get, and he can't help himself. Travis shakes his head. Gabe hears the person on the other end of the line raise their voice, nasally Chicago vowels crackling into the hallway, saying, "I'm not gonna –"

"You fuckin' called _Pete_?" Gabe says, and he thinks his head is going to explode. His friends are a fucking miserable fucking bunch of yentas. "Goddamnit –"

"You're being an asshole, Gabe!" Pete's disembodied voice yells out of Travis' phone.

" _You're_ an asshole," Gabe yells back.

"No, _you_ ," says the phone.

"You are not helping," Travis says into the receiver.

"Fuck you," the phone squawks.

"All of you _shut the fuck up_!" someone shouts from down the hall — Gabe vaguely recognizes it as being one of his neighbors but can't remember the name. "Some of us have to _work_ tonight!"

"You shut up," Gabe calls down the hall.

"If that's you, Saporta, I swear to God –"

"I'll call you later," Travis says into the phone, and disconnects too quickly to get a response. He looks up at Gabe.

Gabe's not sure which one of them starts laughing first. He's sort of pissed that he's laughing instead of being angry, but he can't help himself. Travis coughs.

"Look," Gabe says, and clears his throat. "I don't know, I guess you should come in before my neighbors call the cops on me. I'm not giving you anything fancy, though, so don't get your hopes up."

"Okay," Travis says. He shoves himself to his feet and goes past Gabe into the apartment before Gabe can change his mind.

*****

 _  
her story was much like mine   
_

Travis actually does make him tea, which Gabe isn't expecting him to do. He somehow manages to find a box stashed on its side at the back of the cupboard, despite Gabe's protestations that he's wasting his time. Travis shakes the box of Egyptian Licorice at him in triumph and then sticks a mug of water into the microwave to heat it.

"That looks like something the munchkin would do," Gabe says. "She would, like, organize her shoes by designer but she didn't give a shit about putting groceries away."

"Dude, you're lucky she did," Travis says, taking the steaming mug carefully out of the microwave and throwing a teabag into it. "You'd be missing out on this otherwise."

Gabe says, "Yeah. Lucky me."

"So you guys are really, you know -"

Gabe shrugs. "It was time, man."

They had the worst fight they'd ever had right before Bianca moved her stuff out. He'd done something to set it off, because he's good at that, but he doesn't remember exactly what it was. It got rough quickly. She told him how Elisa used to leave her drunken voicemail messages full of details that she didn't want to know. She asked him why he didn't just take out a billboard announcing that he was fucking Victoria. And she cried, violent ugly crying that ripped the heart out of him, and she told him, "I thought everything would be okay if I just loved you enough."

"She's a good lady," Travis says quietly.

"Yeah, that's pretty much exactly why it was time," Gabe says, and takes a gulp from the mug. It tastes of spice and orange.

Travis doesn't push for more details, which is fine because Gabe doesn't want to give them out. He opens the refrigerator and stares into it. "You're really running out of shit here."

"You're missing the soy milk, dude."

"I see vodka and I see Red Bull. Where's the soy milk?"

"It's behind something."

"That?" Travis reaches a hand in and pokes around suspiciously. "This doesn't sound right. What've you been doing for food?"

"Fasting."

"Like, the whole purification thing?"

"Yeah, why not? I've got to get it right sometime."

*****

 _  
save your wasted time   
_

Travis appeals to the mooch in him by offering to buy groceries. He knows that Travis is treading carefully, avoiding any conversation but small talk to keep Gabe from bolting, and that sooner or later he's going to get cornered, but he also knows better than to turn down free food.

Travis is way more patient than Gabe gives him credit for. He doesn't say anything while they're picking stuff out, which gives Gabe ample time to think about the things he might say, all the ways he can remind Gabe that he's fucking up.

Instead Travis pays for the assload of stuff and helps him drag it home. He braves the temperamental stove to heat up dinner. It's only after Gabe wolfs down about a pound of sweet and sour tofu with broccoli, which tastes really fucking good after the cereal and Red Bull regimen, that Travis says, "What have you been writing? Anything I can jazz up for you?"

"That's over," Gabe says. "My voice is fuckin' fried, dude."

"What do you mean, over? You're telling me that if I pulled up fuckin' GarageBand right now –"

"This is the way it goes, Travie," Gabe says. "I'm not a guitar player, you know? I'm not a fuckin' computer genius or a pianist or a bassist or –"

"Dude, you –"

"I wasn't that great a bassist. This was just an accident, you know? I had music for like ten years by fuckin' accident, and then the universe just decided to let me go. I can't fuckin' argue with what the universe wants."

"That's a bunch of bullshit. So you didn't bust your ass with me all those years ago to headline and –"

"Because I didn't want to let go, you know? I thought I could hang on to it. You know what happens after it's all over and whatever you had passes on to someone else? There's fuckin' _nothing_ , man. You're nothing. Hollowed out."

"Only if you were nothing in the first place." Travis looks quietly at him. "You don't fuckin' lose your soul when you lose your job, Gabe."

"Yeah," Gabe says. "Only when your soul _is_ the job."

Travis starts to say something, but Gabe gets up and says, "I had all these fuckin' ants last year because I was never around to clean. I'm gonna have a drink and do the dishes."

*****

 _  
on a losing streak   
_

It seems like red wine forgot how to behave when he has something resembling real food in his system, so he only has a few drinks, not even enough for the comfort of a buzz, and then he's huddled on the bathroom floor, retching up his dinner into the toilet. His eyes and throat are burning.

"You don't need to do this," he rasps at Travis, who's kneeling beside him and rubbing his back. It's fucking embarrassing, especially because right before his stomach decided to throw a fit on him, he'd been very casually sipping wine and telling Travis that he was fine, really, he was totally at peace with his place in the world, and then he just felt wrong and had to run for it before he started puking in the garbage disposal. "Travie –"

"Shut up," Travis says, but keeps rubbing his back. Gabe tries to shrug him off.

"I'm really okay," he says, before something thick and acrid rises up in his mouth. He gags and spits it out, fumbling for the flush. "I'm okay."

"If you say so," Travis says. He leans over and grabs a washcloth from the rack and stands back up, wincing and flexing his knee awkwardly.

"This is fuckin' disgusting." He can't tell if he's too hot or too cold and the bathroom stinks. "You should really –"

"Dude, did you forget who you're talking to? I once spent an entire summer holding William's hair back for him. Plus I swear Disashi had sympathy morning sickness back when Bluejay was pregnant. I'm practically a goddamn Ph.D. in barf." Travis turns on the sink and sticks the washcloth under the tap.

Gabe smiles despite himself. His stomach seems to settle for the moment and he rests his forehead against the back of his hand.

"You're a moron," Travis says kindly. He presses the wet cloth against Gabe's face, wiping off the spit and sweat.

*****

 _  
there is something I must confess   
_

It takes a while for him to stop throwing up. He's dreading a repeat of that time on tour when he wound up in yet another emergency room with another saline drip in his arm, but finally he can take a breath without triggering a wave of nausea and he thinks everything should be fine.

He doesn't know how late it is, but when he comes back from getting water in the kitchen, Travis is fast asleep on the couch, arms and legs sprawling everywhere, and he looks so exhausted that Gabe doesn't have the heart to wake him. He's too wound up to go to bed, so he sits down and tugs Travis' feet into his lap, and drinks his water very, very slowly.

The remote's within reach, so he picks it up and watches the last History Channel documentary that he Tivo'd. It's pretty awesome, even though the sound is off and he keeps sort of spacing out in the middle of it. He supposes he could go off to his own bed but he knows that'll just turn out badly, so he flips between channels when _Unsung Hero of the Spanish-American War_ ends.

Travis starts to mumble and squirm sometime into Gabe's marathon of _What Not to Wear_. Gabe wonders if he's going to start flailing and kick him in the nuts, but instead Travis just opens his eyes and blinks at him myopically. His face is sleep-puffy and soft. "Hey," he says finally, barely audible.

"Hey," Gabe says. His voice doesn't sound great. He clears his throat.

"How're you feeling?"

"Better."

"Yeah?"

Gabe shrugs. "You want some breakfast?"

Travis makes a face. He pulls his feet out of Gabe's lap. "Not awake enough."

"Suit yourself. Yo, what the fuck is this chick wearing, anyway? Fuckin' pink fake fur? I hope that's fake fur, it's fuckin' unconscionable and gross."

"Um," Travis agrees. He sits up and stares at the television. "Hey, did you mean what you said last night about it being over?"

"Of course I did."

"You can fuckin' do anything you want now, man. Any one of these kids in bands coming up now, they'd lose their minds to get you as a producer. If –"

"Scene kids," Gabe says. "I've had enough of them to last forever."

"Gabe –"

"Hey, I'm doing exactly what I want to do right now, you know?" Gabe says. He turns the volume up on the TV. "This is a whole new experience. I'm not going to fuck around with it."

"Dude, last night you told me you'd lost your soul."

"So? You never thought that there's freedom in that? I got no ties to anyone anymore, bro. I'm just going to go with it."

"Yeah, you're the fuckin' man without a country."

"Since I was four years old," Gabe says. "It's not like I don't know how to deal with that."

*****

 _  
lost my life in cheap wine   
_

Travis doesn't appear to be in any hurry to leave. He's a pretty decent houseguest; he cleans up after himself, makes himself scarce when Gabe wants to be alone and tolerates it more or less patiently when Gabe feels like being annoying. Occasionally he gives Gabe the third degree about what the hell he thinks he's doing, but it's not like he hasn't had these conversations before; it's not like it even bothers him.

He wakes up with sweat running down the side of his neck and his skin fitting awkwardly over his bones, and he knows he's got about a five minute window between this and total freakout unless he gets pills, _now_. He stumbles into the bathroom and swallows a couple Klonopin, sucking tap water out of his cupped palm to wash them down. He can't breathe for a few awful seconds and then his shoulders start to relax. He sighs and puts the vial back in the medicine cabinet.

And then he realizes that he's got an entire fucking pharmacy in various tempting shapes and sizes in there. Percocet and Darvocet and Klonopin and God knows what else, and Gabe may be an asshole but he's not the kind of asshole who shoves his friends in front of moving trucks. He really, really doesn't want Travis wandering in to brush his teeth and getting treated to a cabinet full of painkillers. Rehab was a while ago, but Gabe knows how easy it is to slip back into bad habits.

He takes everything out and figures he'll find a nice hidey-hole for them, maybe split them up and stash them around the apartment, just until Travis realizes the error of his ways and goes home. He puts the vials under his shirt and walks back out towards the bedroom, hoping that Travis is still asleep on the couch and won't notice him.

*****

 _  
I expect nothing less from you   
_

"I've been kicked out of every bar and club in the city," he tells Travis. "If I'm not getting kicked out, I might as well not go out at all."

Travis just gives him a skeptical look. He's sitting by Gabe's open window, flicking cigarette ashes over the ledge.

"It's _awesome_ ," Gabe says. "Get an emotional release just for a cover charge and buying a few drinks? What could be better?"

"Emotional release, my ass," Travis says. "Sounds to me like you just get punched in the face a few times. I know what getting punched feels like, I don't need to remind myself."

"Hey, you want to close yourself off to the experience, go ahead," Gabe says, and cracks another Red Bull. "I'm not going to deny myself it."

"Except you keep talking about how you don't need emotions to get by," Travis says. "Why you seeking out fake emotional releases when you don't need them?"

"Hey, I can pretend to be human sometimes, right?"

Travis looks at him. "You know you're never going to be one of the Transformers, right, Gabe? Doesn't matter what you do."

*****

 _  
could not help my fate   
_

He's been in a shitty mood all day for no particular reason, and Travis is receiving the brunt of it. It's getting to him, Gabe can tell; his mouth is set and he's avoiding looking Gabe in the eye. Gabe's not really the kind to let things go, so he's standing watching Travis try to do laundry, willing him to turn around so he can start up again. Travis isn't complying. Gabe stares at his back and feels insanely irritated.

"Why the fuck are you here, anyway?" Gabe says. "Are you just ignoring something in your own life, is that it? Coming over to waste your time with me?"

Travis throws his shirt into the washer. "Yeah, Gabe, I have a ton of things to ignore. It's not like I fuckin' know how to deal with my shit or anything."

"Yeah, that's bullshit," Gabe says. "You've fuckin' always got something going on. If you –"

"Jealous?" Travis says.

"Fuck you."

Travis' shoulders tense with what's probably guilt, but Gabe's not going to let him off. He says, "You know you're just putting yourself through shit for no reason, don't you?"

"Well, fuckin' _sorry_ ," Travis says. "I'm sorry I fuckin' care about you. I'm sorry I don't want you killing yourself up here."

"If I kill myself then it's my own _fucking business_."

Travis turns away from the washer. He looks horrified. Gabe turns around.

"Fuck you, no," Travis says and follows him out. "You don't get to say something like that and then just leave."

"Leave it alone, Travie," Gabe says. "I'm not going to pussy out and get a gun or anything. I'm not going out like that."

"So why bring it up at all?"

"I don't know," Gabe says, suddenly feeling tired. "I'm just saying shit."

"What the fuck, Gabe?"

"Look, I'm sorry I said it, okay? Forget about it."

"I'm about two seconds away from calling 911 on your ass, Gabe. I can't –"

"Don't, all right?" Gabe sits on the couch. "I said that I was just saying shit. It doesn't matter."

"It fuckin' does."

"You can't tell anyone how to live their life, Travie. If someone wants to –"

"Yeah, you're kind of forgetting everyone else in your life there, Gabe. What are they supposed to do?"

"People shouldn't be so attached to other people."

Travis looks like he's trying to decide whether to punch him or not.

"You shouldn't have come here, Travie," Gabe says. "I mean, whatever, it's okay, you can do what you want. Just let me have the freedom to do what I want, you know?"

"What you're doing doesn't look much like freedom," Travis says.

"That's your perception," Gabe says. "I don't question what you do with your life. I don't tell you what you're allowed to do, because I think you should be able to choose whatever path you want."

"If you really thought I should be able to make my own decisions, you wouldn't be hiding your fucking pills from me," Travis says.

Gabe blinks. "What?"

"Most people don't stick painkillers behind their bookshelves," Travis says. "You're not as sneaky as you think you are."

"Goddamnit, Travie," Gabe says. He knew that was a shitty hiding place. He'll have to go back and re-hide the Muscol, or just throw it out entirely. "Uh, you didn't — did you?"

"I didn't take any," Travis says. "So why do you care, Gabe? Why do you care what I do with my life?"

Gabe doesn't have an answer. He pulls his knees to his chest.

"Don't do this," Travis says.

"I'm not doing anything. I'm fine."

"You're not."

"Fuckin' hide the sharp objects if it makes you feel better, then," Gabe says. "Knock yourself out."

"Goddamnit, Gabe –"

But he isn't really listening anymore.

*****

 _  
there's no way that I want you to be left behind   
_

He has a hell of a time convincing Travis that he's not planning on flinging himself out the nearest window. If he thought doing a little tap-dance and announcing how fantastic everything was would work, he'd do it, but instead he just braves the stove and his own dislike of cooking to make grilled cheese; he gets through a reasonable half of his sandwich before his stomach starts to roil. He informs Travis that he actually wasn't hiding pills from him, he just must have dropped them there by accident and those were old, anyway. He demonstrates by going back and dumping the Muscol down the garbage disposal, which he doesn't mind too much, because Muscol always makes him feel kind of dizzy. He turns on the shitty cartoon that Travis likes and complains loudly about his taste the whole time. He still catches Travis nervously glancing at the cutlery.

He finally does enough convincing to let him go to bed, thankfully, because acting like himself is kind of exhausting. He still feels like a shitty person, but Travis already knows this about him, he hopes.

When he wakes up in the dark with his skin fitting wrong, he thinks, _Oh, goddamnit_. His day sucked anyway, he doesn't need this shit to top it off. He gets out of bed and starts for the bathroom, except then he remembers that he already moved everything, and he doesn't remember any of the hiding places. His short-term memory sucks.

He goes and looks through his closet, but he has too fucking many clothes and he's not finding anything in any of the pockets. It feels like he's being punched in the sternum again and again, and he knows this is going to get worse and he wants it to stop. There must be some sort of cosmic joke going on here. He spent years feeling nothing, until it was familiar as an old blanket, and then the universe turns around and says, _Take_ this, _motherfucker_ , and suddenly he's got more fear and guilt and pain rioting around his head than he's had since he was a kid.

He's going to check the rest of the apartment. He's going to start breathing and check the rest of the apartment and not start screaming. He's going to do that _right now_.

His chest still hurts and he's starting to shake, but he makes it into the kitchen. He checks the drawers, frantically hoping that he was dumb enough to put his drugs in with the silverware, but they're not there and he can't remember where the fuck he put anything and he can't breathe.

"Gabe?" Travis' voice is groggy, still half-asleep. The light comes on. Gabe sees his own hand clutching white-knuckled onto the drawer, and for some reason it makes everything that much worse. He tries to say, "Turn the fucking thing off and go away." It comes out garbled.

"Oh, _fuck_ ," Travis says. "Gabe. Did — are you –"

He almost wants to laugh, because Travis probably thinks he's overdosing or something and his only problem is that he _can't find his fucking pills_. He shakes his head.

"You didn't take anything," Travis says. "What's –" Gabe leans against the sink and presses his forehead into his wrists. There must be a moment where something clicks in Travis' head, because he says, softer, "Gabe. Can you talk?"

He tries to say something, but that doesn't really work either. Travis says, "Yes or no answers? Is that better?"

He manages to nod without looking up. He tries to think, _Chemicals, it's only chemicals_ , but it's really hard to hang onto rationality right now when he feels like he's coming apart. Travis says, over the screaming riot in his brain, "All right, we'll do yes and no for a while. Uh, I'm coming closer. I'm not — How's touching? Is touching going to freak you out?"

He shakes his head. Travis puts an arm around his shoulders, carefully, and the contact still makes him flinch but his heart quits pounding so hard. "Sorry, sorry," Travis says. "C'mon. Come sit down. You're doing fine, Gabe. Take a deep breath, everything's all right."

Travis is a shitty liar. Except he can't stop shaking and he doesn't want to stay here any longer, so he lets Travis pull him away from the sink. He manages to fight past the riot long enough to say, "I don't know where we're _going_ ," shrill and hysterical, stumbling against Travis' side until his legs give out and he's dropping against what he thinks is the couch.

Travis keeps talking to him, words that he can't really make out, soft and low. He holds onto Gabe's wrist with one hand, fingers like a watch band against his pulse. Gabe feels like he should pull away because he must look fucking stupid, but he's not together enough. He presses his face into Travis' bony shoulder.

He doesn't know how long they sit there with him trying not to have a heart attack and die on his couch and Travis hanging onto him. Occasionally the noise in his head quiets just enough to let Travis come through; Travis says, "It's okay, you're all right, shh, sweetheart, I got you. You're all right."

Finally he stops feeling like someone's punching him in the chest, and breathing gets a little easier. His face is squinched tight against Travis' shirt; the cotton feels scratchy. He turns away and mumbles, "Sorry."

Travis strokes his back. "What's going on?"

"I don't know. I keep having these fuckin' kind of panic attacks. It's usually not this bad."

"Yeah, I'm gonna call bullshit."

"It's not."

"Because usually you take a bunch of pills before it gets that bad."

Gabe doesn't say anything.

"Dude, I've fuckin' done the same thing. And it doesn't work. You run out of pills or you don't have the right drink or your tolerance gets too high or it just fuckin' tries to eat you alive. It doesn't stop because you tell it to."

He's too tired to argue. "I know."

"You know you're not really having any new experiences up here, Gabe," Travis says softly. "As far as I can see, you're just having the same one over and over."

"I don't –"

"Is this what you want, Gabe? Truth, okay? Tell me if you want to be doing this with your life."

His throat hurts. He's still shaking a little. "I don't know."

"This is what's going to happen to you," Travis says. "Unless you do something, you're just going to have this over and over until you're not here anymore. No new experiences, Gabe. Just this."

"Fuck."

"It doesn't have to be. You can change."

And he shuts his eyes before he says, "I kind of don't know how."

Travis doesn't say anything for a while. He keeps stroking Gabe's back. Finally he says, "Well, just giving your body a fuckin' break for a while might be a start. You know. You're not sleeping, you're marinating in booze, your stomach's all fucked up. How about you give Gabe from Cobra a rest and just slow down and think for a second? You've got about ten million self-help books in here, doesn't at least one of them talk about getting in touch with yourself or whatever?"

"I just don't want to not be me anymore, you know?"

"Yeah. You'll just be you without all the extra shit you pile on yourself."

"I don't — What if I find out -"

"Find out what?" Travis says. "That you're still Gabe Saporta?"

"No, I — I don't want anyone telling me what to do. I'll fuckin' go crazy. I can't –"

"It'd be a new experience," Travis says. "Trying to figure yourself out without the extra shit."

"I guess."

"You'll be great at it. Real heavy spiritual stuff. Remember when I was all fucked up and moaning about my life to you, and you told me that I needed to take a spiritual journey to figure out what the fuck I was doing and I thought you were higher than I was? I was kind of an asshole there, right?"

He keeps quiet for a minute. Finally he says, "Sorry I slobbered all over you," and brushes at Travis' shoulder.

"I'm wearing your shirt. I don't care what you do to it."

Gabe squints. Travis is wearing one of the Alexander McQueen T-shirts that he'd bought wholesale and then forgotten about. "You were sleeping in my two hundred dollar shirt. Fucker."

"It's comfy."

"Motherfucker," Gabe says, but he can't really muster up a lot of indignation. Again, he says, "I don't want anyone to tell me what to do."

"No one can do that," Travis says. "You just choose it yourself."

"Goddamnit," he says, but he doesn't say no.

Travis must have been wondering whether he was going to say fuck off or not, because when he doesn't Travis puts his arms around him and holds on fiercely, forehead pressed to his shoulder. For a second, he wants to lean into it, hook his chin around Travis' shoulder and just stay there, but instead he forces himself to squirm and mumble, "Quit that, you pussy."

It's weird to get reminded that people still care.

Travis picks his head up. "Fine," he says, but keeps an arm around him. Gabe thinks about insulting him a couple more times, just for the hell of it, but he runs out of energy before he even starts. He feels a little like he's been run through a grinder and then hastily slapped back together.

"I feel like shit," he says.

"You don't look much better," Travis says.

"Nice one, Travie." Gabe scrubs at his nose with the back of his hand. "Listen," he says. "You think you can stick around for a little while longer? Just until I go to sleep?"

"Yeah, I can do that," Travis says. "You okay to get up?"

He's still shuddering and his legs feel strange. "Could use some help."

"Okay," Travis says. He slings Gabe's arm over his shoulders and pulls him up. Gabe staggers and he really hopes Travis isn't putting much weight on the bum knee because otherwise they're both going to wind up on the floor. Travis says, "I got you."

Travis half-carries him into the bedroom, flicking the light switch with his elbow. "Gimme a second to turn these off. Or I can leave them on."

"Leave 'em on."

Travis nods. He lies Gabe down and then crawls in beside him, rubbing circles on the back of his neck with long fingers. "Want me to talk to you for a while?" Gabe shakes his head. "Works for me. You change your mind, let me know. I've got awesome stories."

"Thanks," Gabe says quietly. Travis just kisses his hair and pulls him close.

He falls asleep holding tight to Travis' hand.


End file.
